


sin nadie que me falle

by SeptemberSevertana



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra and Glimmer Argue a Lot, Catra gets a support system, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fighting, Found Family, Gen, Immaturity, Minor Lonnie/Scorpia (She-Ra), Past Child Abuse, Post-Season/Series 02, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 16:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19794601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeptemberSevertana/pseuds/SeptemberSevertana
Summary: After Hordak nearly asphyxiates Catra, she escapes the Horde and heads for the least likely place she'll be discovered: Bright Moon. Of course, that means running into Glimmer a lot more than she'd like. Also sleeping in her bed for some reason that she doesn't want to think too closely about.





	sin nadie que me falle

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this a month ago, intending to write three thousand words of cuddle fluff, specifically with Glimmer because she looks so damn cuddly. I also intended to write Catradora, oops. But while researching to write another She-Ra oneshot that may never be finished, I started seeing similarities between how Catra and Glimmer deal with their various issues and this huge thing came out of that realization. It is now over eight thousand words and full of character analysis. Apparently, I don't know how to write anything else. 
> 
> I would like to thank my betas who knew this show and helped me with characterization. L and E, you are rockstars beyond all comprehension and this would not have happened in its entirety without you. So thanks. :)
> 
> Chapter title from 'Sola' by Becky G. The whole line says, 'voy a vivir mi vida loca sin nadie que me falle,' which roughly translates to 'I'm going to live my crazy life without people who fail me'. That was one of the biggest messages I got from writing this. Everyone deserves a healthy, wide-ranging network of support from trustworthy people and Catra needs it most of all.

Glimmer led armies into battle. She was the surprise attack and the stealth recon and even if she utterly fucked up, most missions could be salvaged.

Catra didn’t know how to feel about that. Her own fuckups usually went much worse.

…

Climbing through Glimmer’s window had been a complete accident. First of all, the castle at Bright Moon was too big, with too many windows. Catra didn’t remember that challenge when she had actually invaded but it seemed more important now anyway. She’d limped out of the Whispering Woods trying incredibly hard not to cough (after all, monsters lurked in those woods) and scarcely managed to climb the sheer face of the castle wall.

Her claws kept skidding. She was so afraid of falling, but only after she’d arrived did she look behind her and remember that fear.

The window wasn’t even latched. Catra scoffed under her breath (well, let’s just say that most of her actions were pale imitations of what she would have normally done had she not just nearly suffocated, managed to escape through miles and miles of dark, scary forest, and scaled a precipitous wall to reach the room of somebody safe. It was more of a gasp or huff than a scoff). She clicked the window open and slipped through the entrance to a bedroom. It took her a long time to locate the bed, though.

Who the hell wanted their bed so high up, anyway?

Catra blearily scanned the rigging that held the bed up; she could jump that, probably, maybe. She might as well try. Worst case, she could get to the top of the window frame and jump the distance from there.

She sprang from the ground, calculating force like she used to as a kid before she learned exactly how to perch on narrow stoops and craggy cliffs. At least this time if she fell she would land on something soft.

But hey, she made it. She had to retract her claws quickly to avoid slicing up the bedding (the bedding was too damn soft) but she made it. Maybe the bedding wasn’t too soft, though, because she fell asleep almost precisely as her head laid down.

She woke up pretty abruptly to someone hitting her with a pillow.

“What are you doing here?” a non-Adora voice questioned sharply and strangely quiet.

Catra groaned as she looked around. “Wrong bedroom. Oh, stars.”

“Wrong bedroom? Wrong bedroom??? So you were intending to creep on someone else?”

The hair that Catra caught a glimpse of in the moonlight was muted pink and violet. “I meant to creep on Adora because I’m fucking tired and Hordak nearly asphyxiated me in the Fright Zone today and I just needed a place to crash for a little while. The woods are dark and I didn’t want to be eaten by various scary creatures. Your mom can throw me in a fucking cell if she wants but I just wanna rest.”

Glimmer didn’t respond.

“If you aren’t going to do anything, I’m going back to sleep.” Catra rolled over and curled into a protective ball. She stayed awake for longer than she wanted to, expecting to be pushed off the bed and to hit the ground. It never happened.

…

Adora and Catra had always been vastly different, even as children. They’d been raised by the same woman, in the same environment, for roughly the same purpose. But Adora responded to stress with denial and paranoia and channeled it through perfectionist tendencies to create a giant ball of neurosis.

Catra responded with crippling insecurity and raging abandonment issues.

...

“What are you doing here?” Glimmer whispered viciously.

Catra rolled her eyes, setting the sticks she’d collected aside. “Camping isn’t allowed anymore? Do you wanna see my permit or something?”

Glimmer shook her head. “The Whispering Woods are part of Bright Moon. Camping is allowed, but you aren’t.”

Catra scoffed. “Clever. You think of that all by yourself?”

Fuming (way too easily, Catra thought triumphantly), Glimmer said, “You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here, and also, are you willing to face the queen with your response?”

“Maybe I like it here.” Catra shrugged. “Nice ambient temperature. People aren’t likely to find me without getting lost.”

“So you’re hiding?”

“What gives you that impression?” Catra asked coldly. “I could be scoping your forces out, watching your patterns, analyzing your movements. It’s just tactics, princess.”

“‘Could’ implies that you aren’t.” Glimmer folded her arms. “Tell the truth.”

Catra let out a short, bitter laugh. “We aren’t friends; I sure as hell don’t trust you and I thought you didn’t care enough to want to know.”

“Anything that could jeopardize the safety of Bright Moon is my business.”

“Me and what army?” Catra gestures around her. “These sticks and branches are pretty scary, I know. I don’t have the magic to make them into golems like your friend Perfuma but maybe it’s just the will that counts.”

“They could be waiting to ambush,” Glimmer insisted. “Hiding in the bushes.”

“You don’t believe that, do you? If you do, I’m afraid there really is no hope for the Princess Rebellion.”

Glimmer let out a shouty, huffy noise that Catra couldn’t help but giggle at. “You’re defenseless, hiding in the forest, building a camp of all things, and you’re baiting me like nothing’s going on. I want to know what’s happening and I want to know now before I bring my commanding officer into this.”

“Oh, Sparkles, it’s so cute that you won’t say ‘my mom’ for fear that it would diminish your maturity,” Catra said archly, smirking a little. “At least you recognize that I’m baiting you, that’s a level of cleverness rarely seen from your lot.”

“You’re deflecting! Still!”

“And I won’t stop deflecting. Leave me in peace and I’ll leave your kingdom in peace. Just because I don’t have an army doesn’t mean I can’t summon one.” Catra turned around in dismissal and started arranging her sticks to make a fire. Glimmer just stood there and watched her, taking visibly deep breaths to calm herself down.

Glimmer’s temper always turned at the drop of a hat. It amused Catra very much.

“Look at you, holding court,” Glimmer muttered after a few minutes. “Basking in the attention. You couldn’t get it from her, but getting it at all is better than nothing.”

“Leave Adora out of this. You’ve only seen me get ugly a few times, and it’s likely you don’t wish to repeat the experience,” Catra breathed, coldly angry.

Glimmer’s eyes brightened meanly. “You don’t get ugly. You play with your food and you _love_ to make a fuss but you’re just scared and desperate.”

Catra laughed bitterly. “Then I’m not a threat to you, am I? Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of your sight.”

Glimmer held Catra’s eye contact for a moment. Her face lost all bravado. “That was cruel of me.”

“But you liked it, didn’t you? How does it feel, now that you’re down here with me?” Catra scratched her claws against one another repeatedly until she got a spark big enough to get her fire started.

“I’ll never be down there with you. We will never be even close to the same level,” Glimmer said, and Catra hated the self-righteous look on her face so much in that moment.

“Oh, dear, sweet Sparkles,” Catra drawled. “Everybody, good or evil, can be viciously mean. It’s just that ‘good’ people deny it and hide it, afraid that someone will find out. Pointlessly, of course. Evil people just accept the meanness and throw it back as a counterattack.”

“But that’s not any way to live.” And Glimmer said it so earnestly that Catra alternately wanted to cry or leap at Glimmer and hurt her.

“It’s survival, not life.” Catra waved Glimmer away. “I’m an expert at survival at this point.”

Glimmer looked so sympathetic, just then. But the expression melted off her face to be replaced with the frozen do-gooder mask that not even Adora could wear all the time. “I’ll be watching you. You will not be the reason for Bright Moon’s downfall, not again, not ever.”

Catra shrugged. “No one’s coming after me, so watch all you want. You might learn something.”

Glimmer left in a huff, teleporting presumably to tell her mother all about the sad, little Horde fugitive living in the woods. Catra held her hands close to the fire and tried to breathe.

…

Shadow Weaver had once held Catra motionless, trapped by the electric current coursing through her body, for five whole minutes.

Catra didn’t think anybody could forget pain like that, especially when it came as a concession to not punishing Adora.

When it was over, Shadow Weaver left Catra on the ground, her four-foot body wracked with tremors and streaked with burns.

She didn’t leave Adora’s side for three straight days.

She’d kept her end of the deal. Of the promise.

Catra yanked herself awake; her claws had been digging into her arms, and the fire had gone out.

…

Glimmer never told anybody about Catra. Or if she did, Queen Angella and Adora never retaliated.

Catra stole supplies from Glimmer’s room a couple of times, just to spite her. Scavenging food was difficult (stupid magical forest) but she managed well enough. It got damn cold, though; and she wasn’t used to sleeping on her own.

She wondered how Adora had gotten over that. The two of them had slept in the same bunk all their lives, in barracks full of other cadets. When Adora left, Catra had lived in the Force Captain barracks with Scorpia, got to listen to Scorpia breathe. She always had time for Catra, had a blanket or a pillow Catra could borrow.

Stars, she missed Scorpia. And Entrapta and her crazy inventions. She even missed Lonnie and Rogelio and fucking Kyle of all people.

(She didn’t deserve to miss Scorpia. She’d been thoughtless, she knew that now. Scorpia only ever wanted to help, and Catra had ignored her and verbally abused her. Scor deserved better. Better than Catra. She should have apologized before all this shit went down. She should have apologized at the start-)

Mostly she missed Scorpia, though.

Nothing for it. Catra wouldn’t have survived in the Horde much longer. Being here was better than being dead.

Glimmer didn’t visit again.

Around two weeks after the first time, Catra found herself climbing through Glimmer’s window, though. She couldn’t remember whether Bright Moon was supposed to have winter but it got too fucking cold at night where she had camped. In the Fright Zone, she’d had to requisition parkas to go up north with Entrapta. The land of Snows was freezing, too, but she’d spent most of that time comfortably on the copter.

The moment she entered Glimmer’s room she let out a sigh (a sigh that she couldn’t see; the temperature was much more to her liking). Catra latched the window behind her—she’d had to pick the lock this time—and padded through the room toward a soft-looking couch.

She curled up on it, burrowing into the plush fabric. Glimmer probably wouldn’t let her in the room at all if she tried to crash in her bed again. Just one night. Just one; she’d steal more blankets so this wouldn’t happen anymore.

Catra felt like she’d only slept for a few moments when she heard the telltale sparkling of Glimmer’s teleportation. She flinched away (on accident, she’s not stupid enough to reveal weaknesses on purpose) but Glimmer didn’t seem to care. She transported both of them onto her bed and threw a portion of her bedspread at Catra for her to crawl under.

Glimmer didn’t ask why Catra came in. She didn’t ask why she hadn’t tried to sleep on the bed again.

Catra wiggled a little, trying to get comfortable. Her feet still tingled from the climb up.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

“No,” Glimmer whispered back. She moved over a little to let Catra have her own space.

Catra didn’t thank her. She wasn’t sure Glimmer would want her to. Snatching up a rose-colored blanket (dammit Glimmer owned too much pink), she shifted until her head hit something that felt pillow-ish.

“It’s cold out there, isn’t it?” Glimmer asked drowsily.

Catra stilled. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

…

Adora’s sense of morality had always been so black and white. Horde: good; princesses: bad. Then once she met the epic-rainbow-friendship squad, her morals had made an about-face. Princesses: good; Horde: bad. She was so blind, so willing to believe things people told her when they gave her attention. So eager to please.

Catra knew morality wasn’t that simple. Bow and Scorpia were genuinely good people fighting on opposite sides by nothing but circumstance. Entrapta didn’t care so much about morality; discovery was her morality. Glimmer was...complicated. She hated the monsters responsible for her father’s death, hated Shadow Weaver and Hordak, hated evil; but she also hated people who got in her way. Glimmer had to prove she had power, prove she could fight back.

…

Her pillow turned out to be Glimmer’s stomach, soft and warm. Catra could hear her heartbeat, could hear her body churn and groan and expand and contract.

Human. Human and alive. Breathing.

She nestled in close, despite herself. The sun only brushed the tips of the horizon, every moon was still out. She could stay here a little longer.

Adora would hate her for this.

Catra shut her eyes tighter. It didn’t matter what Adora thought; Adora still hadn’t noticed that Catra had left the Horde.

Adora had left first anyway.

“Mhmph.” Glimmer swatted at Catra’s hair. “You’re thinking too loud.”

“Sorry.”

Glimmer kept her hand on Catra’s head. “Was it really that cold out? I thought you’d try to find Adora again. Not that she’s here, but I thought you’d go somewhere else.”

“Yeah, it was really cold.”

“And you don’t like the cold,” Glimmer replied matter-of-factly.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, by the way. I was unkind, before,” Glimmer hesitantly offered. “More unkind than I’ve ever been to you. You’re not a nice person but you didn’t deserve that.”

“I’m used to people being unkind, you don’t have to apologize.” Catra deliberately turned her face away.

“That’s not something you should have to get used to.” Glimmer sounded appalled, but still bleary. “Adora must have cared about you for some reason, she’s not an idiot.”

“Haven’t you heard? She obviously doesn’t care anymore.”

“But you do.” Glimmer said it like she was having a realization and Catra couldn’t take it, any of it, anymore.

“Well, duty calls. I have to feed myself, after all. See you around, princess.” Catra leaped off the bed and scurried down the castle wall, skidding into her camp with the horrible sense that she’d given herself away.

...

“Do you need anything?” Glimmer didn’t have her hands on her hips this time or folded. They stayed by her sides, awkwardly held away from her body a few inches, as if she was trying not to move them in any particular way. Forced casualness didn’t really work on her, Catra thought absently, wreathed in easily five blankets.

“No, Sparkles, I don’t need anything.”

Glimmer nodded, then paused, then nodded again. “Okay. I’m here, just in case. You know where to find me.”

Catra hoped the blankets would muffle the sounds of her empty, protesting stomach. “Yeah, I do.”

…

Catra finally broke into the castle again two days later. She’d eaten a plant that week that caused her to throw up over and over, only stopping after a few hours. Even water hadn’t stayed in her body for longer than a minute or two. She hadn’t eaten anything else for a day after that, just to be cautious. She started small, tried to work her way up. Every time Catra attempted to hunt and eat an animal (or at least something with protein), though, she failed.

She’d stolen food before. Nothing new there. But if she got caught this time, she probably wouldn’t be punished nearly as much.

Catra had never actually entered the main part of the castle of Bright Moon. During the invasion, she only got as far as its front porch, never in the gates. And the place was a damn maze.

She assumed the kitchens would be in the lower levels, and less guarded (hopefully). Managing to hide from the four or five guards patrolling the halls, Catra perched on a railing above the bottom floor, looking down. The kitchens had two guards posted (one asleep and one on the way) and she sneaked past both, delving into a jar of nuts (protein and fats; one of the main components of the gruel she’d eaten her whole life).

She barricaded herself in one of the pantries, jar of almonds (?) in her hands, leaning back against the door. No one’s footsteps passed outside; Catra seemed to be in the clear.

Catra decided to take the jar with her, as well as refill it before she left. Never good to not have a backup plan. But she was sadly interrupted.

“What’re you doing here?” Glimmer stage-whispered. Catra sighed. That girl didn’t really have a quiet volume, did she?

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Catra gestured with the jar. “I’m hungry and lacking options, while you people are well-fed and have choices galore.”

Glimmer’s face fell. “You thought you needed to steal from us?”

“I wasn’t going to just ask you! I have zero desire to tell you about the circumstances that led to this point because they’re none of your business!”

Taking a long breath, Glimmer said measuredly, “I want to know why you’re here. The truth, please. You’re not with the Horde, you have clearly needed help for weeks now, and you refuse to accept it in favor of risking yourself for necessities like food and warm clothing. You shouldn’t have to do that. I want to help you, but you have to give me a reason.”

“Hordak tried to asphyxiate me, I already told you this! I couldn’t stay with the Horde anymore, so I went as far away from them and toward the most obvious enemy territory I could find.”

“You were telling the truth?” Glimmer’s eyes glittered. It looked like someone had shattered glass into minute pieces and rained them into those eyes.

“Yeah. I was telling the fucking truth, whatever good it’s done me.” Catra set her jar down on the nearby kitchen counter. “I’m not safe with them. At least here you guys have policies about keeping prisoners that don’t involve torture.”

Glimmer’s hands flew to her mouth. “That’s your version of the lesser of two evils? We wouldn’t torture you?”

Catra helplessly shrugged. “If you have any better ideas of where I could go or if you do actually torture your prisoners, I’d like to know now so I can prepare.”

A moment passed in complete silence. Glimmer teleported out of the kitchen.

Catra sighed. Well, there went her existence the past few weeks.

But Glimmer teleported back in, carrying blankets. Blankets that Catra had stolen in the first place. “Hey, you could have told me you’re evicting me,” Catra protested.

“I’m not evicting you. I’m moving these up to my room, where you’re going to live for a while.”

Catra raised an eyebrow so high it likely hit her hairline. “You’re letting me, invader of Bright Moon and Horde scum, live in your room. Why?”

“Because you’re cold and hungry and need an actual place to sleep that isn’t on the ground in a magical forest that changes its layout every few hours.” Glimmer threw two blankets over Catra’s head and snatched the jar from her hands. “You _will_ be fed, you _will_ be warm, and you _will_ like it. That’s what princesses do. We make things better.”

Catra rolled her eyes under the blankets but smiled (Glimmer couldn’t see it, so it was fine). “Whatever you say, Sparkles.”

…

Catra left Glimmer asleep in her bed, snoring lightly, wrapped in brightly-colored fluff. She told herself she wouldn’t come back, that Glimmer hadn’t meant what she’d said. She insisted that camping was better than being indebted to princesses.

Catra came back a few days later, and Glimmer didn’t look shocked or offended, or any other way Catra thought she would. She just pulled Catra next to her and turned off the lights with a wave of her hand.

Catra left that night, too.

…

Glimmer hummed; Catra felt the vibration of it gently fluttering through her skull. “You didn’t really want She-Ra to hurt us with that First Ones’ tech, did you? You don’t seem the collateral damage type.”

Catra flinched.

“You thought she’d turn back and be on your side again.”

“But she was just crazy. Or drunk. A loose cannon,” Catra said bluntly, shielding her facial expression. “That tech was more trouble than it was worth.”

“She’s not coming back,” Glimmer said softly. “Not to the Horde.”

“She’s not coming back to me, you mean.”

“No, you dummy.” She ran a finger under Catra’s eye, which was wet. Stupid eye. “You aren’t with the Horde anymore. She never wanted to leave you.”

“But she did. Adora left me alone there with Shadow Weaver. She left me to face the wrath of a manipulative monster on my own,” Catra spat.

Glimmer didn’t speak for a moment. Catra resolutely staring at the sun did her watery eyes no favors.

Glimmer hummed again. “I’ll get my mom to make you some food. Adora’s out today, you won’t have to see her.”

…

“Do you just sleep in someone else’s room when you run out of teleportation magic?” Catra wondered. “Having your bed this high seems like an unnecessary risk.”

Glimmer laughed. “Usually when I get home from battle the first place I head is to the Runestone to get recharged. So no, I usually sleep in my room, in my bed.”

“What about after Shadow Weaver held you captive?”

Glimmer didn’t stutter. “I slept in Bow’s room. And Adora’s room, too. We had a sleepover.”

Catra nodded against Glimmer’s shoulder. “Okay.” She paused. “Does your mom make cookies? I had them once during a raid when I was a kid and they were really good.”

Glimmer wrenched her neck to look down at Catra with a dramatically sad expression on her face.

“What?”

Glimmer teleported them down from the bed once, and then another time into the kitchen. She planted Catra in a chair pulled up to the counter and secured Catra’s favorite blanket (a blue one) around her shoulders. “I’m getting my mom and we’re making you cookies.”

…

“Why haven’t I seen Adora yet?” Catra asked, six weeks into her and Glimmer’s…sleeping arrangement.

Glimmer was silent for a minute. “Do you want to see Adora?”

“No,” Catra replied immediately. “Yes? Maybe?…I don’t think so. I just thought we would have run into her by now.”

“We nearly have. She sneaks around at night almost as much as we do.”

“Do you think I can’t handle it?” Catra countered, defensive.

“No. I think that Adora betrayed you. She didn’t know, she isn’t unkind like that. But she still did it. Maybe you need someplace safe for a little while before you feel like you can be near her again.”

“Stable.”

Glimmer hesitated. “Yeah, I guess. If you want to call it that.”

…

If Catra had ever stopped to think about how similar she and Glimmer were at the end of the day, she never gave it away.

If she had ever stopped to think about how different she and Adora were, well, maybe she wouldn’t have tried so hard to get her back. Maybe she would have let Adora live her own life for once, maybe she would have let go. Too many things between them to do much else.

Better late than never, Catra supposed, musing into her (own) pillow.

…

“She said that you sneaked around just as much as we did at night,” Catra declared coolly, regarding Adora (She-Ra, Princess of Power) in a long sleep shirt and slippers.

Adora froze, turning toward Catra with serious alarm in her stance. She’d gotten sloppy, Catra thought.

“Who said?”

“Glimmer,” Catra shot back, slightly vindictive. “Want a cookie? Angella made them for me.”

“Angella is in on this too?” Adora swore. “I should have known they would try to renew our friendship to gain an advantage over the Horde. Of course, my friends are the type to consider reconciliation as a battle strategy.”

“I left the Horde.”

Adora paused. “You what?”

Catra shrugged. “I guess I could only tolerate flagrant emotional, physical, and psychological abuse for so long before it actually threatened my life.”

Wincing, Adora replied, “I deserved that.”

“Yeah, but you don’t deserve all of it.” Catra sighed. There weren’t enough cookies in the world to make this better. “Hordak tried his forcefield of suffocation or whatever bullshit he’s calling it on me.” She pushed through what she had to say, even with Adora’s crushed expression. “Um. I ended up here after that. Climbed through the wrong window. Found Sparkles.”

“You…” Adora looked devastated and Catra suddenly felt not so vindictive. “I was here. I was next door. You could have…”

“No,” Catra cut her off. “I couldn’t have. Even if I’d landed in the right window, I still probably wouldn’t have talked to you or slept in your room. Stars, I probably would’ve jumped the hell back down.” She paused, watching her fingers roll the cookie crumbs into mushed little balls on the kitchen counter. “I don’t think I wanted what I thought I wanted. I wanted to be someplace safe but I’m realizing that even when I’m not in imminent danger when we’re together, I still don’t feel safe with you. And it’s...it’s not all your fault. We both grew up in a shitty place and we both dealt with that in different ways but you were so busy protecting yourself that you didn’t bother to protect me. I don’t blame you anymore for that, we both fucked up by forgetting to protect each other, and I know that you needed to feel safe with yourself too. But I just, I felt so damn _betrayed_ by you, even before you defected. You _promised_ ,” Catra broke off.

Adora didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to, her face said it all. All the blotchy, messy, salt-streaked disaster that their relationship had become. Shit, they used to be best friends. Catra’s only real friend before she met Scorpia. And they had dissolved through extreme stress and shared childhood trauma.

Catra rubbed her eyes hard with the heels of her hands. Everything that should have brought them together had been working to rip them apart. She _hated_ that.

“I’m sorry.” Catra glanced up. Adora reached across the counter to grab Catra’s hand in a stranglehold. “I’m so so sorry.”

“We’ll fucking do better,” Catra countered, a bit more vicious than she meant.

“Yes.” Adora’s haze hardened in resolve. “We will do better. We’re together now.”

“No, we’re on the same side now.” Catra made deliberate eye contact with Adora. “We still need space, I need space, and...I think I need it with Glimmer and Angella. But we will be allies.” Catra inclined her head. “I wouldn’t completely hate hanging out with all of you epic-rainbow-friendship squad kiddos. We should do that sometime.”

Adora nodded. “Yes, I agree. Make a night of it. Bow will love you.”

“That boy loves everybody,” Catra groaned. Adora laughed. Maybe everything was becoming okay for the first time in a long time.

…

“Wuz happen’,” Glimmer murmured as Catra came back to bed. Catra was struck with the thought that she didn’t have anything left in the camp she’d made two months ago.

“I found Adora in the kitchen, just like you said.” Catra hopped up the makeshift stairs Glimmer had installed whenever they were feeling too tired to teleport and crawled in next to Glimmer, who wrapped her arms around Catra’s waist and pulled her in close.

Catra couldn’t remember when this became her new normal.

“Whaa she say?” The question buzzed the skin on the back of Catra’s neck and she shivered.

“It was more about what I said. Setting some boundaries, forgiving her for being a stupid, messed-up kid like I was.”

“Was?” Glimmer suddenly sounded much clearer.

Catra huffed out a laugh. “I guess I still am messed up. But less so.”

“Less works for me.” Glimmer fell back to sleep, nose still perched where Catra’s neck met her shoulders.

Catra woke up the next morning to Glimmer’s hair (it had been growing out a little) mingling with hers on the pillow. The colors clashed somewhat, but not enough for Catra to move away.

…

“I love you and you always look beautiful...but what happened to you?”

Catra rolled her eyes. “You always know how to flatter a friend who you haven’t seen in nearly three months and who’s breaking you and everybody else who wants to go out.”

Scorpia raised an eyebrow. “Are you for serious right now? Leave?”

Catra spread her hands in a dramatic gesture. “The rebels have agreed to feed and house anybody who’s sick of dealing with Hordak’s bullshit.” Her voice softened. “I know you don’t belong here, Scor. You’re too damn nice for this place. Always have been. Your family was taken advantage of when Hordak invaded and you’ve stayed here out of loyalty to them and then to me. But you don’t have to anymore if you don’t want to.”

Scorpia folded her arms. “You’re taking up with any princess in particular? Adora?”

“No,” Catra surprised herself by saying. “Someone else. She’s special, though.”

Instantly Scorpia’s face lit up and Catra knew she had caught her. “That’s so great for you! Now, how can I help evacuate?”

Catra smirked. “Fire alarm ringing any bells?”

Laughing, Scorpia put a pincer around Catra’s shoulder. “Good one.”

As they walked down the hallway to the sound of clanging, Catra asked (trying very hard not to sound concerned), “You don’t like the bun?”

Scorpia shook her head rapidly. “No, no, I love the bun, I’ve just never seen you with anything but your wild mane before. How’d you do it?”

Blushing (still trying really hard not to), Catra replied, “Glimmer did it. Brushed my hair and put it up. I have no idea how she got my hair to behave, much less put the bun on top of my head. My hair’s the worst.”

“Ooh, anime noir girl? She’s cute.” Scorpia blithely disregarded Octavia’s screeching for someone to find the fire and put it out.

“What?”

“Oh yeah, you weren’t there for that episode. Of battle planning.”

Catra raised an eyebrow. “Any reason for the strange pause in that sentence?”

Scorpia shook her head quickly. “Nope. No reason at all. Why would you think that? Anyway, I have it on good authority that during that episode (of battle planning), Glimmer thought of you as a sort of buxom villainess in a lavish dress with a fluffy pet cat. Although your voice was weird; you didn’t sound like anybody I’d heard before, and honestly I prefer your usual flirty tone to the one Glimmer had you using.”

Buxom? Catra? She blushed a little too dark this time to push it away through sheer force of will. “Well, I’m not the type to wear a dress,” Catra said, attempting to recover.

“She knows that now. Perhaps the next time she visualizes you, you’ll be wearing more of a skin-tight suit. She seemed interested in that aspect, at least.”

How could Scorpia say any of this as easily as she was? “Glimmer wouldn’t be interested in me like that. I’m still the girl who led the attack on her home and has tried repeatedly to ruin her attempts at alliances. I kidnapped her, Scor!”

“First of all, you’re an independent woman,” Scorpia scolded, “not a girl. Secondly,” Scorpia blatantly ignored Catra’s protest and Kyle’s frantic running past them in the hall, “you live with her, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And she’s let you stay how long?”

“She practically adopted Adora the day they met! That’s no measure of how much she likes me!”

“How long?”

Catra sighed. “The whole three months, basically.”

“You’ve been living in her house, she’s obviously feeding you.”

“I sleep in her bed,” Catra murmured.

“Okay, hold up. We’re going to have a longer conversation about that later. Basically, she has to like you as more than just friends. Her actions show it more than anything, she freaking let you haul all your Horde amigos to her kingdom to clothe and feed and house out of the goodness of her heart, something I guarantee she would not do if she didn’t trust you implicitly. Glimmer does not seem the type to trust easily. She and Bow have known each other for years, Adora just has that trustworthy aura around her, and everyone else is an alliance member who she’s personally vetted. If it only took her three months to verify a member of the Horde who has fought against her allies before, she must have damn good reason. She must see something in you, something that I’ve seen and Entrapta’s seen and Lonnie and Kyle and Rogelio must have seen because we all work under you and know that we have better luck following you than following Hordak or Shadow Weaver.”

“Thank you,” Catra replied, feeling a warm feeling swell in her chest (ugh, too many feelings today).

“So, are we going to get on with this, or not? We have a lot of people to evac.” Scorpia had shrugged off whatever suspicions Catra had, like water off a duck’s back.

Catra loved her, dammit. She didn’t always show it, but she was going to try harder from now on. Catra mused that she should make Scorpia cookies as thanks for allowing these disastrous shenanigans to take place.

“Yes. Let’s.” A devilish smirk spread across Catra’s face, and Scorpia started to laugh.

…

“Is everybody situated?” Catra asked Angella, formally, just to be cautious.

Angella nodded regally (since that was basically the default setting on her actions). “All the children are being relocated as we speak back to their villages and parents or guardians, as best we can infer, but any children left without family will reside in Bright Moon for as long as they wish to live here. Adults, including most of your squad, have been put up in the eastern wing of the palace. We tried to keep it down to two to a room, but I think there’s one room of three.”

“That is far more aid than I could have hoped, Majesty.” Catra bowed. “On behalf of the refugees, we are honored by your kindness.”

Angella smiled softly. “Oh, darling. You sound so solemn. It was our deepest pleasure to help.”

Catra felt her eyes get all prickly and wet.

“Come here.” Angella opened her arms in an invitation Catra was beginning to recognize. Catra threw herself into the hug, breathing in the subtle scent of magic that permeated the women who drew from the Moonstone’s power. It wasn’t a sickly or corrupted smell, like Shadow Weaver’s magic.

Glimmer smelled like magic. Good magic, clean magic. Sometimes she had the faint scent of wherever she’d teleported from, lingering on her skin like it couldn’t bear to leave her.

Damn, that was sappy. Ick. Maybe Scorpia had a point.

Catra drew back. “Am I still quartered with Glimmer?”

Angella raised an eyebrow. “I thought that was a given.”

Catra flushed. “I just wondered if Glimmer didn’t want me there now that I have all my people back and everything.”

“Glimmer adores you, I hope you know this. She would not be parted from you, not for such a trivial thing. If you want to leave, that’s a different situation entirely, one that you should discuss with her, not myself.”

Frowning, Catra replied, “I don’t want to leave. Does she think I want to leave?”

Angella sighed, deeply and with the put-upon tone of a long-suffering parent. “Darling, my name isn’t Glimmer, therefore I have no authority to tell you.” Catra opened her mouth to respond and Angella held up a hand to halt her. “Speak with her about it, privately and with haste. I am not a messenger, nor can I read my daughter’s mind.”

Catra pressed a kiss to Angella’s downy, cool cheek. “Thank you again.”

Angella gave her a gentle look. “You’re welcome.”

…

Catra fumbled with the zipper to her leotard, managing to pull it down after a lot of contortion. She actually bothered to fold it (freaking laundry people had finally scared her into being more careful with her clothes, dammit) and slid her leggings off, giving them the same treatment. Her sleep shirt was crumpled on the floor, and she slipped it on backward the first time she tried.

“Can I braid your hair?” Glimmer asked from behind her, helping to pull her hair out of her pajama collar.

“Yeah. It’s messy, I was out on a Horde raid earlier.”

“I heard.” Glimmer separated her hair into rough sections, finger-combing it as she went. “Any signs of Entrapta?”

“Nah, she’s too smart for that. But she’ll come back. Hordak isn’t a good person, and she’ll realize it someday.”

Glimmer hummed in agreement. “Mom told me you did a number on their camp, though. That must have felt good.”

“Scorpia says it’s good to have an outlet for my feelings, and fighting against the Horde is the most healthy way.”

“Scorpia is a smart woman.” Glimmer’s hands paused briefly but continued braiding until Catra felt a cord tighten around the ends of her hair. Glimmer walked around to face Catra, pulling the end of the braid over Catra’s shoulder. “All done.”

“Thanks,” Catra murmured, looking up and suddenly eye-to-eye with Glimmer.

“Always.” After a strangely awkward pause, Glimmer finally said, “You know, people say it takes ninety days to break a habit, but only sixty days to form one.”

“We’ve had longer than that.”

“Are we a habit?” Glimmer asked, and her voice made it sound like Catra was treading on thin ice, but Catra didn’t know what she had said.

“You were just talking about habits, I thought that’s what you were referring to.” Catra knew her gaze was hardening and she was trying her damnedest not to do that.

“So you’re staying here, what, because you just kept doing it and don’t feel like stopping? No change of heart, just an honest desire to eat, how did you say it once, ‘non-gruel food’?”

Catra took a deep breath. “I’m staying here because I want to. ‘Change of heart’ is unkind of you to say though, considering I fell in with you lot after my fearless leader left me to _suffocate_ and _die_. Or did you conveniently forget that in favor of believing that you could somehow wrestle all the Horde’s secrets out of a helpless woman looking for shelter?” Catra drawled.

“As if you are even remotely helpless! Your MO is pulling people in with those sad eyes like ‘oh, take care of me, I need love and food’!”

“What is it with you and thinking I need food? Am I that damn pathetic-looking?”

“No, you aren’t! That’s exactly my point! You give off this aura like you’re damaged and fixable if anyone would just put in the effort but I’ve put in the effort and all you have to say is that you stay with me out of ‘habit’!”

“I never needed fixing,” Catra seethed. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with me, as _your goddamn mother_ tells me every five minutes.”

“Oh, really? What about your deep trauma from your own mother?”

“Shadow Weaver was never my mother! She wasn’t capable of the emotion required!”

“Trauma! She abused you, don’t deny it. Now you don’t trust anybody, not even Scorpia completely. You lash out at people who genuinely want to help because you can’t bear the thought that they actually might!”

“I think quite a bit of that came from Adora! Yeah, Adora, the woman who left me in that environment to join your merry band of misfits. You fucking _embraced_ her as the princess your alliance needed so badly to succeed and you didn’t spare one single thought to the people she left behind, the people forced to fight you, who fucking _let you go-_ ”

“After you _kidnapped us-"_

“And I realized that no matter what I did, people gladly broke their promises to keep themselves on top. So I gave up trying to be someone I wasn’t, trying to help people who refused to help me. And it felt so good for a while, finding people who were loyal and true, but then, Hordak and Shadow Weaver betrayed me again, each! One decided that I wasn’t even worth the air I breathed and the other…” She broke off. “The other pretended like I meant something to her, and used me to escape.”

Glimmer gasped a little. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, she did.” Catra finally focused long enough to notice that she and Glimmer were a few feet apart now; she didn’t remember moving away. “I stayed here because I felt safe here, pure and simple. I had no other place to go, no place in the Horde where Hordak couldn’t find me and finish the job, but Adora was here. I knew that even if Adora didn’t want me I’d still be out of harm’s way in somebody’s dungeon.”

“We don’t have dungeons,” Glimmer whispered.

“The hell you don’t. I’m asking Angella for a full tour tomorrow.” Catra paused. “You guys were the least bad of all my bad options. I didn’t mean to stay this long, honestly, but the nights got cold, which is dumb, by the way, you should get that fixed.” Glimmer rolled her eyes. “And you kept...kept letting me take advantage, like you fucking adopted enemy soldiers every other week or something.” Catra took another deep breath. “It wasn’t a habit, it was more like sticking your feet in warm water after wandering around a really cold forest for a while. It starts really uncomfortable because your feet tingle and you get pins and needles but then once you get your whole body in you can finally relax, and all the tension drains out of you.”

“Living with me is like a warm bath?” Glimmer had a strange look on her face that Catra couldn’t place, and she fingered her braid nervously.

“Yeah, I guess. Like...coming home.” She trailed off, folding her arms just for something to do. “I didn't have to run anymore. I had a bed and a family and my best friend again. And food.”

Glimmer didn’t speak for a moment, but then rushed forward to throw her arms around Catra. Catra had to unfold her arms to accommodate but didn’t mind, not really (not at all). “I’m so sorry I said all those horrible things to you!”

“A lot of them were true,” Catra conceded gently. “I still don’t trust very well and I did have a shitty childhood and adolescence and brief adulthood…”

Glimmer laughed wetly. Catra felt the tears dripping into her shirt and avoided thinking about it. “But just because it’s true doesn’t mean I get to just throw it at you whenever I get angry.”

“I did bad things to you and yours, with and without knowing about it. I deserve to be yelled at, and honestly, I expected it a lot sooner.”

“You deserved none of that,” Glimmer emphasized, drawing back to stare at Catra directly in the face. “None of it. We have both thought about each other like demons we have to slay, and now we’re learning that we’re both people with feelings and pasts.”

“But you are…” Catra reached forward to cup Glimmer’s chin with her two hands, careful to keep her claws blunt and sheathed. “You are everything. To me. And isn’t that worse than demonizing each other, me seeing you like that?”

Glimmer’s breath hitched. “No. Not ever.”

Catra stroked Glimmer’s cheekbones with her thumbs. “Are you sure? Would you ever want a habit like me to worm its way into your golden-rainbow-sparkles life?”

“Haven’t you done that already?” Glimmer’s fingers traced where the end of her braid met her shoulder, then up and into the collar of her sleep shirt, chilling the skin there and making Catra shiver.

“Not all the way. I need your permission first.”

Glimmer hummed, and then the moment broke as Glimmer pulled away, extricating herself from Catra and walking toward the steps to bed. “Ask me in the morning. I think we both need to sleep.”

...

“Scorpia loves you, you know. She worships the ground you walk on,” Glimmer murmured into Catra’s neck.

Catra pulled her closer. “Not like that.” A few breaths passed between them. “Adora loves you, too.”

Glimmer shook her head. “Not like that. She loves Bow and me the same. As friends.”

“Can you be sure about that?” Catra wondered aloud, but with barely any sound.

“Yeah. She saves all her...contentious feelings for you.”

“Big word, baby girl,” Catra said, kissing her on the forehead lightly. Maybe Glimmer wouldn’t remember.

…

Fraternization among Horde cadets was forbidden. In fact, it wasn’t even spoken of. When it happened, it was punished brutally, and therefore, rarely happened. Shadow Weaver made sure of that.

Adora didn’t tell Catra about any feelings she may have had for other cadets. Maybe she didn’t have any.

Catra knew that the only person she was capable of developing fraternization feelings for was oblivious and perfect and her best friend.

She wouldn’t put Adora in danger like that.

Catra didn’t think they would have made it in the Horde. Now, though, with Glimmer...felt more real than anything she’d attempted to feel about Adora.

And she was safe now. That was also a plus.

…

She didn’t wake up first. Glimmer had woken up first; she had the softest look on her face and she was running her fingers through Catra’s hair.

Dammit, she never could concentrate when Glimmer did that.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Just fine,” Catra grumbled, closing her eyes (like Glimmer couldn’t see her if Catra wasn’t looking back).

“Ask me,” Glimmer said whisper-soft.

Catra sighed. “Can I stay with you? And I don’t mean for just a few months. I mean I want to help you fight against the Horde, and after we defeat them, I want to fight alongside you for as long as we have. I want to live with you. I want this bed to be our bed. I want to yell at you and you to yell at me when we’re dumbasses and I want to make up with you. I want you to wrangle my hair because it only listens to you. I want to play with Scor’s kids with you because I’ll be the cool aunt who teaches them how to beat people up and you’ll be the nice aunt who stuffs those kids full of sugar. I want a life with you, basically. Is that…” Catra hesitated. “Is that what you want? You could love anybody here; they’d love you like I do, probably better. I just have to be sure.”

“You love me?” It was a stuttered statement, a callback to how Glimmer used to talk when they first met.

“Shit, princess, I don’t know.” Catra took a deep breath. “It’s the closest thing I’ve ever felt to the way people talk about love. And you know, maybe we can figure it out together.” She paused. “I’m a damn mess. You’re a damn mess, too. We could take care of each other. But only if you want to, because if you don’t, I’ll leave you alone, you never have to speak to me again.” (Have to get the rest of it out, have to get the rest of it out) “What do you say?” Catra finished haltingly.

“I...I…”

Catra winced. “That’s fine, I can go.”

“Oh, quit with the insecurity crap,” Glimmer said suddenly. “Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. As long as you want me.”

Catra scoffed. “You just signed yourself up for a life sentence.”

“Fine,” Glimmer said defiantly. “You have to kiss me now.”

“And then we have to kiss in front of Adora because I’m still bitter.”

Glimmer rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Deal.”

Catra kissed her. She tasted a lot like she smelled: clean magic, skin. Catra tasted warmth in Glimmer’s mouth, too, which probably wasn’t a taste, but she wasn’t exactly coherent. They had always fought so mean and now they kissed so gently and Catra felt heady with the contrast. Her whole body was buzzing where Glimmer had her hands.

They broke away and touched foreheads. “Damn,” Catra murmured. “I would have done that sooner if I’d known how it would feel.”

“I agree,” Glimmer breathed.

“Are we going to do it again?”

“You bet your life we are.”

…

Catra had never learned where babies come from. It obviously had nothing to do with gender: Glimmer had a mom and a dad, Bow had two dads, and Adora’s friend Razz had apparently had children with her wife, Mara.

Then again, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Scorpia and Lonnie had conceived the conniving little monster Catra was babysitting.

“I swear, she takes after Lonnie. Scor has never been this mean in her life,” Catra whined as the baby whacked her on the hand with her tiny (but still pointy and terrible) scorpion tail.

“But her eyes and her sweet face and the tail are all Scorpia, though,” Glimmer cooed, ignoring Catra’s plight and letting the baby wrap her tiny fingers around Glimmer’s thumb.

“Yeah, yeah. I hope ours take after you. The world cannot handle another baby me,” Catra huffed, buttoning the last button on the baby’s jumper with a flourish.

“I thought you just wanted to be the cool aunts,” Glimmer said quietly.

Catra shrugged, trying not to feel hurt. “It’s not a dealbreaker or anything, if you don’t want kids we don’t have to have them-”

“No, I want kids. I thought you didn’t.”

Catra shook her head, moving the baby (Reina, that was her name!) side to side in coordination. “I do. I wanna make a kid’s life better than mine was.”

“Well then, we’re having kids!”

Scorpia walked in, saying, “You are not allowed to have confrontations about children, especially not around my child.”

“Not a confrontation, Scor,” Catra said, a grin spreading across her face. “An agreement.”

“You guys are disgusting,” Lonnie added, walking through the door and sweeping her daughter out of Catra’s arms. “Go be gross about kids somewhere else.”

Catra kissed Glimmer, just to spite Lonnie, and then grabbed Glimmer’s hand to pull her from the room.

“We’re not as gross as them, though, right?” Catra asked.

“Never,” Glimmer replied, looking briefly revolted.

“You shared a bed for months before you started dating!” Lonnie called after them.

Catra couldn’t help giggling, and Glimmer followed until they were a laughing mess in the middle of the hallway.

“We’re ready for this, right?” Glimmer asked a little later.

Catra smiled. “If we’re not, there are a lot of people who can kick our asses into shape. Your mom. Adora. Bow. Scor and Lonnie.”

“Not Kyle, though.”

“Oh, stars, no. We’re smarter than that.”

**Author's Note:**

> 'I love you and you always look beautiful...but what happened to you?' was shamelessly stolen from my cousin. I forgot to mention it up at the top. Thanks, cuz. :)


End file.
